Salt in the Wounds
by Back-From-A-Guilt-Trip
Summary: Her patience with the Sugar Rush racers having reached its limit, Vanellope has game-jumped and is living a new life, with an interesting new mentor. Meanwhile, her abandoned game suffers in her absence. One-shot.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Wreck-It Ralph. However, the character Salty is my own creation.

This story is dedicated to my friend Vale's Fanfic Adventures, who helped me brainstorm this story. She is the author of the Candlehead-centric story _Daft,_ which you should all read. Like, right now.

* * *

**Salt in the Wounds **

* * *

Ralph was nearly blinded when he stepped into the world of Rock On. Why did everything in this game have to be so flashy and seizure-inducing? One would think that a game full of punk racer women would be a bit darker, a bit grittier. This was like walking through a Las Vegas-themed carnival that never closed down. And to make matters worse, a Blink-182 song was blasting at full volume from somewhere. Ralph felt a headache coming on. He almost forgot why he'd come here.

Then he remembered. It was because Vanellope was living here now. This was the game she left Sugar Rush for. He was visiting her, bringing her presents and news. He still wasn't used to this change. It had happened too quickly.

"Ralph!" She'd spotted him. She ran towards him, glitching with excitement. Another thing he still wasn't used to was her new look. She'd had to alter her appearance to blend into Rock On, to trick the gamers into believing that she belonged in the game. The highlights in her hair, the leather jacket, the plaid skirt, the combat boots…it all seemed to suit her more than the frou frou princess gown did, but Ralph still swallowed a lump in his throat whenever he saw her in this new getup. It was like she'd become a completely different Vanellope, even though in personality and spirit she was still the same mouthy brat he knew and loved. He would just have to get used to it.

"Heya, kid!" They hugged. They hadn't seen each other for days. Ralph asked if they could go somewhere quieter, since somehow the music seemed to be getting even louder. Vanellope led him away from the noise and to an empty racetrack, where they were alone (and where Ralph could hear himself think).

"So how are you?" Ralph asked as they settled onto the metal bleachers. They squeaked under Ralph's weight. "Have you won any races? Made any new friends? Are you eating well?"

Vanellope grinned. "Yes, yes, and yes. Salty's a good cook."

She was talking about Salty Jackwagen, the kind soul who'd taken her in and was teaching her everything she needed to know about being a Rock On racer. Ralph hadn't met her yet. All he knew about Vanellope's new mentor was that she was the best biker in the game, and did the most amazing stunts. Ralph hoped that he would get to talk to her soon. He had some questions for her.

He gave Vanellope the presents he'd brought: a tin of jellybean cookies from Mary, socks and a sweater from Felix, a pack of playing cards and some bars of good soap from Calhoun, and three thick blankets from himself, because he couldn't stand the thought of Vanellope being without proper blankets again. There was also another offering that wasn't exactly a present. It was a stack of letters, each one written in a child's scrawl. He placed these on Vanellope's lap, and waited.

Vanellope stared down at them. She touched the envelopes suspiciously with her fingers, as if they each contained something that would harm her. Without opening a single one, she pushed them back into Ralph's hand. "I don't want 'em."

"You're not even going to read them?"

"I know what they're going to say."

Ralph sighed. He was going to have a hard time explaining to the Sugar Rush racers that Vanellope wasn't interested in their apology letters. They were going to cry, though maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. It was their fault, after all. They were the ones who took advantage of her forgiveness, her generosity. They pushed her patience to its limit and made her snap. Now they had to pay the consequences.

"They just don't understand what _leave me alone_ means, do they?" Vanellope scowled and started picking at her fingernails, now painted purple. A fleck of polish came off her thumbnail. Her mouth twisted into a little frown of annoyance.

"Oh, _swell._ Now I gotta redo this one," she muttered under her breath.

Ralph raised his eyebrows in surprise. Since when did Vanellope care about nail polish? "I guess they're just looking for some kind of closure. You _did_ bolt without saying goodbye to anyone. I mean, you had every right to do so, and I'm not blaming ya, but still."

"If they think I'm ever going back, they're dreaming," she said. She scowled again. "I tried to be nice. I tried to be forgiving, but they blew it. They really blew it. I've had it with them and their fake, crummy lives. If they think they're such hot fudge sauce, they can run Sugar Rush without me. They survived without me in charge before. They'll get by."

Ralph pressed his lips together. He didn't know whether or not to tell her that President Taffyta had already lost control of things, even though she hadn't been in power for very long.

Back in Sugar Rush, the racers and citizens were turning on each other, blaming one another for everything that had gone wrong, including Vanellope's abandonment. The racers were trashing each other's karts, driving each other off the road during gameplay instead of trying to win the races. They beat each other up as well, when they were angry or frustrated (which was all the time now). The good chunk of the citizens weren't showing up to the races because they couldn't stand to watch them anymore. Sour Bill, that useless cough drop, was no help whatsoever. He'd quit his job and was living like a hermit on the outskirts of the game, refusing to speak to anyone. It was an all around disaster.

But Vanellope had renounced Sugar Rush forever, and with good reason. He knew that she was serious about it. Would she even care if she knew that her old kingdom was going up in flames?

"I've got it made here," Vanellope continued, oblivious to Ralph's look of indecisiveness. "The tracks are _incredible._ My new bike's a blast. The girls are really nice. Salty's an angel."

Ralph managed a small smile. "So I've heard."

"There's no entry fee for the roster races," Vanellope went on. "Everyone gets a shot, even if they're short on cash. The girls throw sick parties all the time and I can have cheese fries and ice-cold Coco-Cola whenever I want. And best of all, there's no stupid, ugly, butt face _king_, telling me that I can't—"

"I thought we agreed that we weren't going to talk about him anymore," Ralph interrupted her.

Vanellope shrugged. "It doesn't matter if we talk about him or don't talk about him. He still ruined everything."

They sat in silence for a short while. Vanellope helped herself to one of Mary's cookies. She offered one to Ralph, who shook his head.

"I'm glad you're happy here, kid. I really am," he told her as she bit hungrily into her treat. He was being completely sincere. "I think this is what you needed all along."

Vanellope nodded, brushing crumbs off her skirt. "Trying to make amends with them was a huge waste of time."

She was beginning to look depressed, so Ralph decided to change the subject to something more pleasant for her. "So, when do I get to meet her?"

Vanellope looked up at him in confusion. "Who?"

"Salty!" he reminded her. "Your new gal pal?"

"Ohhh, yeah. She's out right now."

"When will she be back?"

"Eleven-thirty."

"That late?"

Vanellope shrugged. "She has stuff to do."

* * *

Ralph stayed in Rock On until eleven-thirty, and he finally saw Salty for the first time. A minute later, he pulled Vanellope aside.

"I thought you said that all the racers in this game are girls." He spoke in a low voice, so Vanellope's mentor couldn't hear him.

"Salty_ is_ a girl," Vanellope hissed back.

"Girls don't have Adam's apples that big, kid!"

"Don't you know what 'transsexual' means, moron?"

Ralph gaped at her. "Salty's a_ transwoman?!_"

Vanellope rolled her eyes. "Yeah, she is, mush for brains. What's the big deal?"

"So _you're_ the famous Wreck-It Ralph!" Salty's chirpy voice exclaimed, interrupting their whispered conversation. She had cropped hot pink hair, silver piercings. Her high-heeled boots looked impossible to walk in, but she seemed to have no trouble sashaying in them with ease. Her makeup was flawless. She winked at Vanellope. "You didn't tell me that your big brother was such a _dish_, sugar pie."

Vanellope giggled. "He's a Stinkbrain."

"Nelly's told me _so much_ about you," Salty enthusiastically informed Ralph as she extended her hand. "I feel like we're best buddies already!"

"Um, nice to meet you, Salty." Ralph nervously shook her hand and tried his best not to glance at her breasts, which were obviously implants. Salty noticed this and laughed. "Go ahead and look, hun. I don't mind. I paid a fortune and a half for these puppies. Someone's gotta look at them."

Ralph's cheeks blazed crimson. Vanellope laughed. "Salty, will you show Ralph that thing you do when you drive through the fire rings? It's amazing!"

Salty twirled a loose hair around her finger. Her nails were painted pink. They matched her hair. "Sure, dolly. Just let me slip into my racing gear."

She left to change, her heels clicking loudly on the pavement as she walked. Ralph turned to Vanellope and said, "He…oops, I mean _she_ seems…okay."

"Just wait 'till you see her _drive!_" Vanellope said with gusto. They didn't talk about Sugar Rush again that night, though Vanellope did decide to hold onto the letters.

* * *

The Sugar Rush racers confronted Vanellope in the middle of the Game Central Station a few days later, after she stepped out with a grocery list that Salty had put together for her. They were full of apologizes, promises, pleas. They wanted her back. They wanted her to be President again. They would change for her. They would break out of their habit of treating her badly even if it killed them.

Vanellope's heart wasn't made of stone. They almost wore her down. They almost had her. She was almost willing to give them yet another chance. But then Taffyta made a fatal error. She made the mistake of maliciously referring to Salty as a "he-she." Vanellope lost it.

"Salty is a GIRL!" she shrieked at Taffyta, at the racers as a whole. "And do you know what else she is? She's a better racer _and_ a better friend than all of you combined!"

Vanellope didn't know then that this would be the last thing she would ever say to any of them. If she'd known, she would have chosen her words more carefully. But she was too angry to consider the future. Deeply rooted in the present, in that single moment, she turned her back on them.

She went back to Rock On in tears and without the groceries. Salty pulled her into her arms and let her sob on her lap. "Oh, those little monsters, making my baby cry!"

"I wish I never had to see them again!" Vanellope wailed.

Ralph, who heard about what happened through the grapevine, arrived in Rock On and took Vanellope off Salty's hands. A few hours later, after he'd gotten her to go asleep, he sought out Salty and found her in her garage, sitting with her back against her motorcycle. She was smoking a cigarette. She wasn't wearing any makeup.

"What a world we live in," she said quietly, more to herself than to Ralph. She took a deep drag. Ralph saw that there were tears in her eyes, which were for once free of heavy mascara and eyeliner. They were blue, honest, and, at the moment, very sad.

"I heard something in Game Central on my way here," Ralph told her. "It's just a rumour, but the kid should probably know. Mr. Litwak might unplug Sugar Rush. It's not doing as well as it used to. All of its regulars have outgrown it."

Salty said nothing, but instead extinguished her cigarette on the heel of her boot.

"If it's true, the racers are going to be looking for new homes soon. This is going to sound really bad, but…don't let them live here," Ralph pleaded. "Vanellope needs to have this game for herself. They took everything from her when she was a glitch. Let Rock On be her safe place. Please."

Salty looked up at him. "They're little beasts, but if they come knocking on my door, looking for a place to stay, how am I supposed to say no?"

"Easy. Just say _no. _There are other racing games—"

"Do you honestly think that any of the other games are gonna take them?" Salty asked him. She turned her head to the side, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. "Where do you think someone like me would've ended up if my girlfriends had said no when I asked if I could join their gang? 'No' is such an evil, hateful word. Don't you agree, Ralph?"

Ralph didn't answer.

* * *

There was confusion, horror, panic. No one was coming out of the Sugar Rush tunnel, and Mr. Litwak's hand was already on the plug.

"What's going on?" the characters in the station asked each other. Why wasn't anyone trying to escape?

Inside the game, the characters glitched and screamed for their lives. Sour Bill had doomed them all. Using the hacking skills he picked up from King Candy, he had sneaked into the castle's code room, butchered their codes, and cut their lives short. He claimed that it was the first time in his life that he'd done the right thing.

None of them were ready to die. They still had dreams, aspirations. They still had people they loved and confessions that had gone unspoken. They had been cruel their entire lives and their redemption had never come. It was the end for them, and there was still so much that they could have had, so much that they could have done to make themselves less of an embarrassment to Litwak's Arcade. But now it was too late.

For his actions, Sour Bill was beaten almost to death by an angry mob. They didn't give him the mercy of allowing him to regenerate. The racers cried for help at the entrance but didn't receive any. When their world began to disintegrate behind them, Jubileena and Adorabeezle sobbed so hysterically that everyone was certain that they'd gone mad. Taffyta sank to her knees, pressed her hands against the invisible barrier locking them all inside the console.

"Vanellope," she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks. She curled up into a ball on the ground and didn't move until it was all over. She knew that in a way, this was all her fault. And for that she accepted death quietly, and with grace.

* * *

Salty visited Fix-It Felix Jr. three days later. "How's she holding up?" she asked Ralph.

"Not so well," Ralph answered. Vanellope's grief was so great that she could hardly eat, sleep, or speak, let alone race. She had moved into Ralph's game so that the Nicelander women could take turns keeping an eye on her during the day, to make sure that she didn't try to hurt herself. Most of the time, she just lay on her cot in Ralph's house in stunned silence. She'd cried her eyes out on the day of the unplugging and now there was nothing left.

"I won't bother her," Salty assured him. "I just wanted to bring her this."

It was a shoe box containing the Sugar Rush racers' apology letters, still unopened. "She forgot these in Rock On. I'm surprised she kept them."

"I don't think she wants those, Salty."

"She will one day. Trust me," Salty insisted, shoving the box in his hands. Before she left, she said, "Tell her we're waiting for her back in Rock On, whenever she's ready. We'll take care of her car and bike for her."

Ralph watched her go. Her heels sunk into the dirt and left little holes. He didn't doubt for a second that if the Sugar Rush racers had lived, she would've taken them all in, out of the goodness of her heart, even though to her they had just been nasty little bullies. Just looking at her redeemed his faith in racing games.

* * *

Vanellope was back in Rock On after a week and a half. She hated doing nothing. She refused to let grief make her lazy. She would not give up racing, not for anything. She would make it through this, somehow.

"Welcome back, dolly," Salty said as she drove her bike up next to Vanellope's car at the starting line. Rock On's lights were flashing in Vanellope's hardened eyes. "Ready to eat my dust?"

"You wish, salt pork," Vanellope shot back, keeping her eyes locked on the road before her. The flag was dropped, and they were off, full speed ahead.

Vanellope won the race, with Salty in a close second. Vanellope would never know that Salty lost that race on purpose, just to see her young friend smile again. To Salty, _that_ was what winning was.


End file.
